Houma tug company owner faces new charge

Published: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 9:14 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 11:02 a.m.

The president and owner of Houma-based Cenac Towing is charged with making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission in connection with illegal campaign contributions he made to Louisiana's two U.S. senators, authorities said.

Cenac gave cashier's checks that he purchased in the names of others to the campaigns of two Senate candidates between Feb. 16 and May 24 2008, court documents show. The contributions violated individual federal contribution limits of $2,300 for primaries and $4,600 for general election campaigns.

The bill of information, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, does not name the candidates.

But Cenac and his tug and towboat company agreed to pay a $170,000 fine to the Federal Elections Commission in August for using corporate money to donate to the campaigns of U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La.

According to the settlement, Cenac made $15,000 in contributions to Vitter's campaign in the names of others in February 2008, then $25,300 in contributions to Landrieu's campaign in the names of others in April 2008.

The initial complaint was filed by a watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which said the fine was the largest the FEC levied last year and the 34th largest in the agency's history.

If convicted of lying to federal investigators, Cenac faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised probation.

The bill of information is merely a charge, and he has not been proven guilty, U. S. Attorney Boente said.

The FBI, Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office investigated the case.

Landrieu's office said earlier that her campaign was suspicious of the checks, which were numbered sequentially, and never accepted them, instead donating the money to the U.S. Treasury. Vitter's office told the New Orleans Times-Picayune Thursday that Cenac's campaign donations involved in the settlement had been donated to charity.

Cenac has a long history of philanthropy in Terrebonne and Lafourche, including an endowed chair established in his name at Nicholls State University.

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